A Marriage of True Minds: A Sasha McCandless Novella by Melissa F. Miller Read Free Book Online Page B

empty. He hoped that meant that Hank, the other football watchers, and
the staff had headed out the back door and through the organic herb garden. His
best guess was that Hank and Manny would have charged through the open-air
patio and stormed the ballroom. He assumed that they had both ignored Sasha’s
ban on firearms and wished like hell that he’d done the same.
    If Hank and the
others were in the ballroom, that just left Sasha and her bridesmaids
unaccounted for ,
Leo told himself, while the men tied him to a metal chair, pulling the kitchen
twine tight around his wrists and ankles.
    While the fat
man admired their handiwork, his taller, thinner friend had pulled out a beat
up cell phone and placed a call that Leo’s rusty college Spanish did little to
help decipher. All he could tell from the obsequious tone was that the man
seemed to be speaking to a superior.
    But his brain
refused to focus on the situation in the kitchen. It kept circling back to
Sasha, fixated and worried. He kept telling himself she’d be okay. She had to
be.
    A third man
entered the kitchen. It was clear he was in charge. He squatted in front of the
chair and peered into Leo’s face. His eyes were hard and flinty, sunken into
his skull and surrounded by deeply tanned, wrinkled skin.
    The man had
coughed out a humorous laugh and then snapped a close-up of Leo using the thin
guy’s phone.
    Leo was still
blinking from the flash when he heard a scream that unmistakably belonged to
Naya coming from the corridor. If Naya was out there, Sasha was almost
certainly with her. His throat closed around a hard lump.
    The two goons
had gone to investigate. And they hadn’t returned.
    As the minutes
ticked by, the leader became more agitated. And Leo became increasingly
hopeful. If anyone could outsmart the armed bandits who had besieged
their wedding rehearsal for no evident reason, it was his bride-to-be.
    Finally, the
leader turned his back to Leo and placed a call on a his battered cell phone.
    Leo kept his
eyes focused on the floor and strained to hear the leader’s furious, whispered
Spanish.
    Leo translated
silently, wishing Manny were in the kitchen with him. Leo had relied on Manny’s
language skills as they’d drunk their way through a small Mexican town during a
training exercise. He could certainly use the help, now.
    Amid the flurry
of rapid Spanish, an English word—“ Capitán Bricker”—registered. Leo
involuntarily sucked in his breath. He tried to ball his hands into fists,
forgetting that he’d been bound tight to the chair with a length of cord. He
leaned forward and spat a glob of saliva and blood on the floor.
    Bricker was
behind this. It wasn’t a surprise, exactly. But he’d been allowing himself to
pretend this was a run-of-the mill kidnapping. Not ideal, by any means, but not
exactly unheard of for this part of the world. He’d hoped a decent-sized stack
of American currency would ultimately resolve the situation to everyone’s
satisfaction.
    The fact that
they were dealing, not with desperate bandits seeking money, but mercenaries
hired by a madman meant that the only way out would be ugly and bloody. And
possibly, deadly.
    Not exactly the
wedding of his dreams.
    He heard a loud
knocking sound from the hallway. The man on the phone reacted quickly. As he
ended his call and raced toward the kitchen doors, they swung inward.
    Leo lifted his
head. What he saw made him feel immeasurably better and, somehow, exceedingly
worse.
     
     
    ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
~ ~
     
     
    Sasha and Aroostine burst through the
kitchen door like two of Charlie’s angels. Only instead of guns, they were
wielding machetes.
    Sasha was
wearing a gorgeous wedding gown. Or, what had once been a gorgeous wedding
gown. The skirt appeared to be in tatters and blood dotted the bodice. He hoped
it wasn’t her blood.
    She flashed him
a sheepish smile and then turned to the leader as he pulled his machete from
its sheath.
    Leo rubbed his
wrists against the back